


love in the asylum

by sionnain



Category: The Frighteners
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sionnain/pseuds/sionnain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a girl mad as birds, and the boy who loved her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love in the asylum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scaramouche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/gifts).



> Scaramouche--this request intrigued me so much that I went and watched the film, and even though this wasn't the fandom we matched on, I knew I had to write it. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for the most excellent prompt--and for introducing me to a new movie! Happy Yuletide!!
> 
> Thanks to S. and J. for the beta!

**love in the asylum**

 _A stranger has come/To share my room in the house not right in the head/A girl mad as birds_

The first time he sees her, he thinks she’s a patient.

It’s his first night shift at Fairwater, and they’ve told him not to go ape if he turns a corner and sees some slack-jawed, drooling loony wandering around in a nightgown. Johnny doesn’t get why people keep telling him this at all. The patients are just as likely to roam the halls in the daytime when they’re _awake_ , aren’t they?

“Crazy’s the same all the time,” Johnny says, imbued with all the confidence of his two orientation sessions and three weeks on the job. “Besides, they don’t ever notice me, anyway.”

Lewis, his supervisor, shakes his head. “Oh, they notice you, Bartlett. You’re just not interesting enough for ‘em to care about. Best hope it stays that way, too.”

“Not interesting enough? For a bunch of morons who sit around all day and see shit that ain’t there?” Johnny hates when people say that, it makes him so _mad_. Like that stupid chick at the bar last night, the one who laughed at him when he tried to pick her up. _Sorry, sweetie, but orderly at the crazy house? I’m a little out of your league, don’t you think? Come back when you’re a doctor and I might be interested..._

“That’s the thing, Bartlett. To them, it really _is_ there.”

Well, that’s why they’re crazy, right?

Lewis gives him the keys, tells him to have a good night and have the night nurse call if there’s an emergency. “Just...darkness has a way of changing things, Johnny. That’s all.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. Guy sounds like he’s on one of those shows his ma likes, the ones where everything is real dramatic and people stare at each other a lot. This place ain’t _General Hospital_ , geez. Johnny goes to make his rounds, and sure enough, for the first few hours the only thing in the darkness is him, his cart with the squeaky wheel, and the occasional sound of a snore or two.

It’s so boring, he skips his next scheduled round and goes outside to have a cigarette. Then skips the two after that and has a nap in the breakroom, because he can’t keep his eyes open when the whole goddamn place is asleep. He’s still a little groggy when he heads out with the cart again, and that’s when he turns the corner and sees a face staring out of the darkness.

“Hell!” he exclaims, a rush of adrenaline lighting up his nerves like a goddamn firecracker. As he gets closer, he sees the face is attached to a person--a girl-type person, young, with dark hair and a dark dress, blending into the shadows. “Oh. Um. Miss, you--you gotta get back to your room, ain’t supposed to be out here,” he says, moving slowly towards her. _Act confident. You’re in charge, here._ “Let’s go, now.”

The girl looks up at him and smiles. “My room. Right.” Up close, he can see she’s not as young as he first thought. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

Oh, great. They went over this shit at orientation, what’s he supposed to say when the patients ask that. “I think you are in the right place to receive help for--for stimulations--uh, I mean, for _situations_ \--that you can’t control,” he recites.

She laughs and moves closer, pushes the cart out of her way. “That’s nice. But I didn’t ask if you thought I was a patient, I asked if you thought I was crazy.”

Okay, that particular question was definitely not in the orientation. “Why--uh, you probably wouldn’t be here if you weren’t...um....” What the hell is she doing talking to him? Isn’t she supposed to be talking to shit that ain’t there, like the rest of them?

“If I weren’t, um... _what_ ,” she mocks, tilting her head curiously. Something about the way she’s looking at him makes him angry.

“If you didn’t need to be here,” he finishes stiffly, eyes flickering over her. She has a nice figure beneath that dress--they usually don’t let the patients wear stuff quite so short--and it he feels a rush of heat as his gaze lingers on her legs, the press of her breasts against the fabric.

If Johnny was better at noticing things, he would have figured out she wasn’t a patient by the quality of her dress, the thin silver chain around her neck, the fact she’s wearing _shoes_. But Johnny isn’t one for noticing things like that, he’s not what anyone would call _observant_ , and he’s too busy thinking about putting his hand over her mouth and fucking her over the cart to pay attention to footwear.

 _Bet I could get away with it, too...they’d just think she was making it up, like they all make up shit._

“Does that mean _you’re_ crazy? You’re here,” she points out, and for some reason he feels like she knew what he was thinking about doing, but that’s not...that’s not possible.

“I work here,” he says, clearing his throat and casually tugging the cart between them to hide his sudden hard-on. “And that means, when I say you gotta get back to your room, you have to do it.” He smiles humorlessly. “So do it.”

She moves fast, pushes the cart away before he can stop her and steps in closer. Despite his little fantasy, Johnny takes a step away from her. It doesn’t phase her, she just moves right along with him. “Just because you work here, doesn’t mean you’re not crazy.”

Johnny’s back hits the wall, which startles him because she’s a tiny little thing and a _girl_ , what the fuck? He’s not afraid of girls, hell no. It’s too easy to intimidate them, you only gotta be scared of people who are stronger than you are. Johnny reaches out and grabs her by the upper arms, digs his fingers in and smiles meanly when she gasps. “Maybe not, but you know what it _does_ mean?”

“No, what?” She’s staring up at him with wide, dark eyes, breathing a little faster. He can even feel her trembling a little.

Good, she’s afraid. She should be, stupid crazy bitch--who does she think she is? Johnny yanks her hard against him, smirking. He feels good, _really_ good, powerful and like he’s in control of the whole goddamn world. He leans down and whispers, “Anything I want. You get that? _Anything_.”

Sure, he’s not going to really _do_ anything. Nah, he’ll just scare her a little bit and then maybe...go out to his car, have a smoke, take care of himself while he _thinks_ about doing it, yeah. But for right now, he’s just gonna prove that he’s in charge because that’s the important thing. Can’t have the inmates running the asylum, after all. Johnny heard someone say that earlier, one of the doctors, and a lot of people laughed. So it must be funny.

The thing is, though, Johnny isn’t real sure who’s in control here. Because the girl slips her arms around his neck and presses close, and she sure as fuck don’t seem scared. “Anything you want,” she breathes, nodding. “Do you want me to pretend I’m scared?”

Johnny growls, anger and lust tangled up together in his head until he’s not real sure there’s a difference. He turns and shoves her against the wall, grabs at her throat with one hand and pins her there with his weight. “I don’t want you to _pretend_ nothing.”

“Then I guess you better scare me.” The way she says that makes him feel stupid, like she’s laughing at him. But that’s dumb, she’s just crazy. He grabs harder at her throat, watching her face flush red as she fights to breathe. Her eyes are wide as she looks at him, and yeah, that’s better, now she looks--well, like she can’t breathe, but that’s probably scary so it’s good enough. She’s wriggling around, too, and struggling to get away _definitely_ means scared.

Except that she’s--wait, what she’s doing, that’s not struggling. That’s rubbing up against him like a whore, that’s what that is. And it feels really good, too, so he grinds his dick against her and that feels even _better_. When he finally lets her breathe, she gives a wild laugh and kisses him. Her mouth tastes like peppermint, and her legs are around his waist, and when she murmurs _scare me some more_ , Johnny does his best, right there on the hallway floor.

He’s pretty sure he does a good job, because she whimpers a lot like he’s hurting her, and when she says _no, stop,_ it doesn’t sound like she’s lying. But then she goes tense underneath him and shudders, rakes his back with his nails and bites his shoulder-- _twice_. A girl’s never done that with him before, but he’s seen porn movies and magazines so he knows what it means.

When it’s over, he lays there for a minute on top of her, pants pushed down around his hips and his hands still pinning both of hers to the floor above her head. He’s trying to remember how to breathe when he hears her say softly,“My name’s Patricia.”

Johnny thinks he can hear the whisper of her name echo down the hallway until it’s gone; faded into the dark, into the night.

* * *  
A few days later, he’s working a regular day shift and he sees her again.

They’re on the first floor where all the offices are, and she’s walking with a guy in a suit. Johnny has the vague sense the guy is someone important, but he can’t remember who he is or why. It doesn’t matter, either, because he only cares about her--dressed in a severe black dress, pigtails, a scarf around her neck.

She doesn’t look at him when she passes him, which makes him angry-- _come back when you’re a doctor_ \--until she reaches up and tugs at the scarf.

Her neck is bruised up good, the purple and black a violent contrast to her fair skin. He watches her lightly brush her fingers over the marks before she tugs the scarf back in place and keeps walking. She doesn’t look back, and he can’t look away.

Johnny goes outside and gets in his car, drives to the cemetery and parks way in the back so no one finds him. He thinks about her touching her neck, rubbing her fingers over her bruises over and over. It doesn’t take him longer than a few minutes, and right before he comes he shoves his wrist in his mouth and bites down hard, wishing it was her. Biting him, or being bitten--he doesn’t much care.

When he gets back to work, he finds out who she was with--Dr. Bradley, the director of Fairwater Sanitarium.

Patricia’s father.

* * *  
Johnny’s scared he’ll lose his job--if she goes running her mouth to her _daddy_ , it’s almost a certainty--and he spends a lot of time thinking about how to get her back. He doesn’t like feeling weak and useless.

During his next night shift, his body is humming like a live wire; all buzzing and short-fused, ready to spark at a moment’s notice. Every time he turns the corner on his rounds (because he can’t sleep, when he closes his eyes he immediately sees his hand on her throat and--yeah), he looks for her slight figure, waif-like and spectral amidst the gloom.

It pisses him off even more that she’s not there. Now he’s scared, worked up _and_ disappointed.

 _I’m really going to show her what’s what, next time. Next time, next time..._

But the next time he sees her it’s the middle of the afternoon. She’s sitting on a bench in front of her father’s office, reading a book. Johnny’s heading home, red-eyed and tired from a long night shift, but he wakes up when he sees her there.

She raises her head and meets his eyes across the busy hallway. As Johnny stares at her, the noise fades to a dull roar and all the other people just...vanish, like they’re ghosts and she’s the only thing that’s real.

Patricia closes her book, motions him closer with a small, secret smile. Johnny crosses the hallway and sits next to her on the bench. They’re so close together, he can feel her slight weight pressing against his side. “You here to see your daddy, little girl?”

“Yes.” Her eyes flash with something angry and mean, and Johnny recognizes that all too well.

That’s when he realizes she’s not going to tell her father anything at all.

“I’m Johnny,” he says, holding his hand out, all respectable-like for her to shake. “Johnny Bartlett.” He doesn’t remember if he told her his name when they met or not.

Patricia smiles at him, bumps his shoulder with her own. She puts her hand in his, but instead of shaking it, she holds it. “I know who you are.”

“Oh, yeah?” That makes him happy, thinking maybe she saw him around and was so impressed, she came looking for him specifically. “Been watching me, have you?”

“No.” Patricia leans her head lightly against his shoulder. “Been _waiting_ for you,” she says quietly, voice so soft her words are almost lost. She squeezes his hand, sighs and rubs her face against his shoulder. “Johnny.”

No one’s ever said his name like that before, made it sound like a prayer to Jesus in heaven instead of a swear word. No one’s ever _looked_ at him like she’s doing right then, either. Most of the time people look right past him, but not Patricia. She’s smiling at him, at _him_ , and Johnny is utterly lost.

Johnny turns his head, murmurs softly into her hair, “You know what I would do for you?”

“No, what?” She’s smiling that mean little smile of hers, the one that makes his knees weak and his dick hard.

He closes his eyes, shudders as her nails break the skin on the top of his hand. _Yes, bleed for you._ “Anything you want,” he breathes. “Anything at all.”

* * *  
His favorite thing about Patty is how everyone thinks she’s so _sweet_.

They think she’s an angel at Fairwater. She gets good grades and her teachers say she’s _so polite and respectful_. It’s all sunshine and flowers, _yes ma’am_ ’s and _I’d be happy to_ ’s.

 _Yeah, they don’t know her at all. And Johnny likes that, he does, because _he_ knows how she really is. He figured it out and they didn’t, they’re all still fooled. That means he’s smarter than other people, better than they are. _

Her parents hate him, he knows it, but she doesn’t care so neither does he. He shows up at Patty’s door with some flowers, takes pictures in front of the mantel in her creepy old house, tries to be a nice, normal guy who’s taking Patty to a school dance.

They go to the cemetery instead, lying on a blanket under the star-lit night sky. Patty sits on top of him, traces her initials in his chest with a slender, sharp knife. He’s shaking and sweating beneath her, because she takes her sweet time and goes real, real slow, but it feels good, too. It’s always like this with them. When she’s done, he’ll do it to her, too. Maybe. She likes the knife more than he does. Johnny doesn’t have that much patience, doesn’t really appreciate the subtlety. He’d rather just fuck her really hard and choke her, maybe slap her around some.

Luckily, she likes that, too. He knows that because she whispers things in his ear while he’s doing it, urges him on to do it _harder, hurt me, again_. Sometimes she cries when it’s over and he never knows what to do, but she tells him not to worry, it’s just that he’s so good at scaring her.

So Johnny kisses her, and promises he’ll kill anyone else who tries to scare her even _half_ as good as he does, and falls asleep with his hand around her throat.

* * *  
“How did you know it was me?” Johnny asks her one night, drowsy and a little drunk from the liquor she brought over from her parents house. It was really awful, foul stuff, but it was free. And probably good, ‘cause her parents are rich and the bottle isn’t a regular kind, it’s a fancy heavy one with a glass stopper, and it’s square.

A _decanter_ , Patty calls it. His girl is smart like a whip, and she knows words other, regular people don’t know.

“What do you mean?” she asks, her attention turned completely on him. That warms him up better than that shit they drank ever could. Patty never acts like his questions are stupid, not like the people at the hospital who think he’s an idiot.

“You said--you were waiting for me, remember? That day outside your daddy’s office.” _The day I fell in love with you._

“Oh. Yeah. It was your eyes.” Patty reaches up and brushes his hair back with his fingers.

Johnny tries to puzzle that one out, but it’s impossible. “Huh?”

“I grew up in Fairwater, Johnny. Around all the crazy people. Crazy people have crazy _eyes_ , haven’t you ever noticed that?”

“Sure. They’re crazy, baby. They got crazy everything.”

“They’re all empty, though. Empty glass, like that bottle.” She kicks at the decanter with her foot, knocks the heavy glass over on it’s side. “They don’t know they’re crazy, so their eyes never fill up.”

Johnny’s brow furrows. “You sayin’ I had non-crazy eyes? Wow, I’m quite a fucking catch, huh.”

She giggles, soft and vaguely menacing, and climbs up on his lap. “No. You have crazy eyes, John Charles Bartlett, and you know it.” Her nails trace the edges, rub gently underneath. “They’re beautiful, though.”

Well, that’s good to know. “You sayin’ it’s ‘cause they weren’t empty?”

“No, they were. They were the right kind of empty.” She straightens, puts her hands on his chest and digs her nails in hard. “The kind you can fill up.”

Before he can reason that one out, she pulls her nails down and rakes his chest, hard enough that he bleeds. He stops trying to figure out what she meant exactly.

She can fill him up with whatever she wants.

* * *  
It starts one night when she grabs his hair, pulls his head down towards hers and puts her mouth next to his ear. “Remember--when you said you’d kill anyone who tried to scare me that wasn’t you?”

“Yeah?” He can barely hear her, pleasure racing down his spine in a warm electric buzz as she tightens her legs around his waist and lifts her hips up to meet his.

“How...tell me how you’d do it,” she says softly, her breath on his neck making him shiver. “Tell me how you’d kill them.”

And so he does.

* * *  
She’s the one who gets him the book on Starkweather for a Christmas present.

Johnny lays with his head in her lap, eyes closed, listening to the rise and fall of her soft voice read passages from the book. She gets him all worked up and tells him about the eleven people Starkweather killed, how he did it.

“You could do that,” she says, drawing her fingers lightly over his face. “Be smart like that, powerful....” She’s got that look in her eyes she gets sometimes, the faraway one, like she’s looking at something he can’t see.

Whatever it is, he wants to see it, too. He doesn’t even care if it’s not really there.

“Hey,” he says quietly, reaching up to tug on her hair. She’s wearing it loose, just like he likes it, half-hiding her face. _Come back to me. Or take me where you are. Just don’t leave me here without you._

She blinks, then looks down and rubs her fingertips over his forehead. He watches her eyes focus, sees her attention gradually come back and settle on him. Good, that’s how it should be. “Would you kill eleven people for me, Johnny?”

Johnny shakes his head. “Nope.” He laughs when she scowls, eyes narrowing slightly. “Someone else already killed eleven, Patty. I ain’t gonna be a copycat, no way. That’s not smart or powerful or nothin’ else at all like that. So you know what I’m gonna do?”

“What?” she asks, then gives a playful shriek as he moves fast, flipping her so she’s on her back and he’s grinning down at her.

“I’m gonna kill _twelve_ ,” he boasts, winking, and then leans down and kisses her.

* * *  
Now it has become the thing they do. The thing they talk about, think about, daydream in heated whispers about what it might be like to really do it.

“We should make a list,” Johnny says once, after a particularly bad day at work. “I get six and you get six. If you don’t need all six of yours, I could add a few more.”

Patty doesn’t like that idea, though. “No, you can’t plan it like that.”

“Why? Why’d I go and kill twelve people and not make ‘em people I don’t like? That’d teach them real good, wouldn’t it? Or, ohhh, I got it!” Johnny snaps his fingers, looking triumphant. “I let ‘em live so they can mope about how if they were just nicer, if they didn’t treat me like dirt, maybe I wouldn’t’ve done what I’d gone and done. Right?” He searches her expression, looking for her approval.

Patty shrugs. “Maybe. But then they think they have all the power, Johnny. ‘Cause they _made_ you do it. If that’s okay with you...”

“No!” he exclaims, shaking his head for emphasis. “Hell, no. But if I ain’t gonna kill people I don’t like, and I ain’t gonna _not_ kill ‘em, either...then how do I know who to do it to?” He raises his hands, makes finger-guns and starts making shotgun noises.

“You don’t,” she says simply. “Not until you’re doing it. Then no one has any power but _you_.”

Johnny nods, impressed with her reasoning. It’s a good thing he’s got her around to watch out for him, that’s for sure. He’s never going to be weak as long as he has her, and he’s going to have her for _forever_.

No matter what.

* * *  
“I’ll go to jail, you know,” he says, looking at the shotgun lying on the floor--so _real_ , it’s tomorrow and he can hardly believe it. “Should we go out with a bang, instead?”

Patty doesn’t laugh at his joke, just shakes her head vehemently. “No. Not both of us. Only as a last resort.”

“But baby, we won’t go to jail together. And I can’t stand thinking about you being locked up like that, away from me.” He watches her play with the knife, watches her test it on her finger and draw blood. “I’d rather _die_ than be without you, Patty,” he swears, grabbing her hand and kissing it. “I would.”

“Good,” she murmurs. “That’s good, Johnny. And don’t worry. If you die, I’ll find you there--just like I did here. I promise.”

That seems a little crazy, seeing as how she’ll be not-dead and all, but Johnny believes her. His girl, she’ll find a way. She always does.

* * *  
Johnny isn’t a poet, he’s not any good with words. That was always Patty’s thing, not his. So it’s a little harder than he thought, figuring out some last words that aren’t too hard to remember, and that’ll get his point across.

Whatever he says, it’ll get back to her. And he wants her to know that he doesn’t regret it, wasn’t remorseful for a _second_. That he never believed anything she said about the two of them, after he went to jail. That he was hers, right until the end.

Finally, he stops trying to come up with something and figures he’ll know what the right words are when the time comes.

And he does.

Just as the executioner flips the switch, Johnny tilts his head back and yells--

“Got me a score of twelve! _Beat that_.”

* * *  
The pain is forever and horrible and blinding-bright, and then it’s gone and there is nothing at all. In the space between, when he can see the end of all things rising up with the darkness--that is the only time he is afraid.

 _Darkness has a way of changing things, Johnny. That’s all._

 _I’ll find you there, just like I did here. Promise._

It only lasts a moment.


End file.
